Activity Type
An Activity Type in ERPNext is a type of work or service research, execution, or communication against which employees can record time in timesheets. Defining activity types assists with standardizing how tasks are categorized and how the costs and billing are managed among different projects.
To see Activity Types in ERPNext v15:
1. How to create Activity Type
- Go to the Activity Type List and click New to begin creating a new category.
- Enter the Subject that clearly describes the type of work—for example, "Consultation", "Testing", or "Design".
- Specify the Default Costing Rate, which serves as a fallback cost-per-hour value when no employee-specific rate is set.
- Mention the Default Billing Rate, which will be used to calculate billing if no user-specific rate is provided.
- Press Save to save the new activity type in the system so it can be used for timesheet entries.
ERPNext has a list of predefined activity types that you can use as is: * Planning * Research * Proposal Writing * Execution * Communication
These are for typical service categories and assist in faster setup for routine project workstreams. These can be edited or deleted as your company may need.
3. Employee-Specific Rates
Though default rates, ERPNext v15 allows you to specify personalized cost and billing rates per employee using the Activity Cost master. This allows various employees to have varying rates for one and the same activity type, which means cost tracking and profitability analysis will become more accurate. The system will pull the employee-level rate where available; else, it will use the default rate of the activity type.